1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter) and a smart IC card reading system, and in particular to a UART with an IC card reading interface and an IC card reading system using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Plastic money, such as bank cards including credit cards, has been more popular in these years. As we know, a conventional plastic card which is called a magnetic card with a magnetic strip stuck thereon cannot store a great amount of data and lack of security. In line with the great progress in semiconductor technology, the sizes of integrated circuits (ICs) are getting increasingly small. For this reason, an IC card has been developed by the integration of a plastic card and an IC, and is used to completely replace the conventional magnetic card. Since an IC card can store much more data, has a better security and cannot be easily damaged, the IC card not only functions as a bank card, but also as an identification card and a health insurance card. Therefore, it has become a new trend that the smart IC card is widely applied in our daily life.
In general, an IC card can be classified into a memory card, a microprocessor card and a contactless card. Currently, a card reader required for reading the memory card and the microprocessor card is designed mainly using an 8-bit micro-controller as a center to communicate with a computer's UART through an RS-232C communication interface. As shown in FIG. 1, a conventional IC card reading system is shown. In FIG. 1, an IC card reader 12 reads data from an IC card according to an ISO7816 specification. After that, the read data are transmitted to a personal computer 10 according to an RS-232C communication specification, and then are processed with a driver thereof.
The prior IC card reader 12 includes an IC card socket 19, a smart card interface 18, a micro-controller 17 and a receiver-transmitter 16. When an IC card is inserted into the IC card socket 19, a firmware included in the micro-controller 17 can control the smart card interface 18 to provide an I/O signal in compliance with an ISO7816 specification for access of the IC card according to commands from the personal computer 10. Typically, data read from the IC card through the micro-controller 17 are converted into an RS-232C specification signal by the receiver-transmitter 16, and then the RS-232C specification signal is transmitted to a UART 14 of the personal computer 10 through a receiver-transmitter 15 of the personal computer 10.
The IC card reader 12 requires more than 3 ICs, such as a micro-controller with a firmware therein, a receiver-transmitter for conversion to meet a communication interface specification and a smart card interface for conversion to meet an IC card specification. It can be known by referring to an ISO 7816 specification that an access serial data format for an IC card includes one start bit, 8 data bits, one parity bit and at least one guardtime bit, and is one of data formats which can be received and processed by the UART 14, i.e., one start bit, 8 data bits, one parity bit and one stop bit. As be obvious from the above, data are subjected to two specification conversions with similar serial data formats in the IC card reader 12 of the personal computer and the UART 14, respectively. This causes more energy source and materials consumption and higher manufacturing costs.